What Is A Performance Dress Shirt?

Admin Gretrix | May 8, 2020

Dressing up for work can be a pain. Many of your clothing options tend to be uncomfortable and difficult to keep looking good throughout the day. Performance dress shirts can make a huge difference in your daily life.

Performance shirts are dress shirts that look professional all day, resist wrinkles, don't require ironing, and keep you cool. Performance shirts can change the way that you think about dress clothes.

History of the Dress Shirt

Our grandfathers and grandmothers spent a lot of time ironing cotton shirts. A smooth, wrinkle-free dress shirt was (and remains) the mark of a professional. Unfortunately, after about four minutes of wear, the dress shirt would be wrinkled. It wasn't uncommon to keep several extra shirts available for a wrinkle-free exchange in case you had an important meeting.

These days, it is a lot easier and less time-consuming to look professional at work.

Most Comfortable Stretchy Performance Dress Shirts:

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BALLER // Performance Black
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Non-Iron Black Skull Contrast
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CLOSER // Performance Blue
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Non-Iron Navy Rooftop Dobby
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What Are Performance Shirts?

Performance shirts are dress shirts with a couple of key characteristics that set them apart from the standard old-fashioned cotton dress shirt. These shirts have the same clean and professional appearance as old-fashioned shirts, but they do much more for you.

Performance dress shirts resist wrinkles. They don’t have to be ironed before wearing and won’t get wrinkled throughout the day. Furthermore, these shirts are fast drying so you won't have sweat stains. Possibly most important, they have some stretch to them, which makes them comfortable and improves their fit. The best performance shirts offer even more features. Here’s what you need to know about performance shirts.

Stretch

Performance shirts have a bit of a stretch to them which helps you get the perfect fit. Your performance shirt shouldn’t fit so tightly that the stretch is noticeable. However, having some stretch does make a big difference in the way your shirt feels throughout the day.

When you sit down, extend your arms, and are otherwise mobile, performance shirts won't restrict your movement or feel tight like traditional dress shirts. Performance shirts may even feel more like athletic wear than they do like dress shirts. This can make a big difference for those needing to wear their dress shirt all day every day.

The best performance shirts have a 4-way stretch using spandex material that enables your body to move freely but does not look like it is made of stretch material.

Wrinkle Free

Wrinkles aren't a good look in any workplace. Unfortunately, as you go about your day, sit for periods at a desk, and walk around, you have a really good chance of getting some wrinkles in an old fashioned dress shirt made from cotton fabric.

Thankfully, performance dress shirts are able to resist wrinkles throughout the entire day. Even more impressively, the best performance shirts don't need to be ironed before you wear them. Proprietary non-iron treatment such as that offered by Twillory will keep you wrinkle-free all day long, no matter how many times you alternate between sitting and standing, or how active or sedentary you are.

If you ever have been embarrassed by wrinkles that keep coming back throughout the day or if you've gone to your briefcase for a change of shirt before an important meeting, it's time for you to upgrade to a wrinkle-free performance dress shirt.

Moisture-Wicking

Perhaps the only thing that is as bad of a look as a wrinkled dress shirt is one that is damp from perspiration. Performance dress shirts wick moisture away through performance fabrics, allowing you to go from the warm outdoors to the cool indoors comfortably. Moisture-wicking performance shirts help you to avoid sweat stains and damp places no matter how active you need to be at work. Many of these materials also have anti-microbial properties to keep bacteria from growing on the surface.

A great moisture-wicking performance dress shirt may even work well enough that you won't need to wear an undershirt. This can keep you much more comfortable if you are working in hot climates and don't want to deal with another layer if you can avoid it.. To find the best performance shirt, make sure to check the product details before you checkout.

Cooling

The best performance shirts contain proprietary moisture wicking materials like Twillory’s CoolMax wicking fabric to quickly pull moisture away, evaporating sweat as soon as it is formed so that you stay cooler. These shirts also are highly breathable so that there is good air exchange between your body and the air outside.

A shirt that cools properly should keep you comfortable in either cool or hot conditions. The trick is to keep moisture moving and off your shirt, so it doesn't make you cold when you go back into the office or sit still for periods and doesn't make you damp when you are hot or active.

Hangs Well

One of the biggest potential problems with a dress shirt that is made to be as comfortable as athletic wear is that it will look, well... like athletic wear. You don't want a dress shirt that clings to your body like a workout t-shirt. Your performance dress shirt should look no different from any other dress shirt.

You want your dress shirts to hang attractively, show a little bit of your muscle tone, but not be too tight. Look for a performance dress shirt that has a loose, natural way of falling while still offering some definition around the arms and chest.

Other Features

There are a few other features that are really nice to have in a performance shirt, although you may not be able to expect to find these features in the majority of performance shirts. If you find a performance shirt that comes at a reasonable price with these great features, you'll know you have a good buy in your hands.

Collar stays. If you want your collar to be crisp and straight all the time, a collar stay can really help. Collar stays are a mark of the professional who knows what he is doing when it comes to his dress shirt. It is a sign of a high-quality performance dress shirt to have an attractive matching collar stays included. Extra points if collar stays are made of a very durable and attractive material like brushed nickel. Collar stays should be removable, not built-in.
Collar ring shield. The collar ring shield makes a collar more comfortable for you to wear as well as protecting the fabric from sweat stains and wear and tear. Look for a collar that is made of a very comfortable and non-chafing material. It is an attractive touch for collar rings to be of a contrasting color.

How to Wear Performance Shirts

Performance shirts can be worn like any other dress shirt. You can choose to tuck a performance shirt or keep it untucked. They come in long sleeve and short sleeve options. They come in a wide variety of patterns and colors, some of which offer a classic work shirt look in white or dark blue. Others have some fun with gingham, windowpane, or plaid patterns, raglan or buttons and stitching that contrast with the primary shirt color.

If you want to look great and a little dressed up but still casual for a great night out, you can easily dress down these dress shirts by wearing the shirt untucked with jeans and tennis shoes. There are also more athletic varieties like performance t-shirts, polo shirts, sweatshirts, and even hoodies! Maintain a highly professional appearance by tucking a performance dress shirt into dress pants and wearing a jacket and dress shoes. There are lots of options for performance shirts.

Performance Pants

Once you try out a performance dress shirt and learn all of the advantages that they have to offer, you may be wondering whether you can get the same sort of performance in your dress pants. You'll be glad to learn that high-quality performance dress pants can be found. Here are some of the great features that these pants have to offer.

Non-Iron. Sick of ironing your dress pants before work or even sending them to the dry cleaners?? Wear high-quality performance dress pants with a performance shirt and you can forget about ironing for good.
Sweat-wicking. Pants that wick away sweat continuously keep you cooler and drier, and also help you to stay warm when you go from a hot outdoors environment to a cooler indoor environment.
Breathable. Highly breathable pants keep you comfortable throughout your day and make it less likely that you will sweat.
Pockets. Good pants need good pockets. Look for zippered travel pockets and a travel pouch that will keep your possession safe.
Shirt-gripping waistband. When you tuck your shirt in, you want it to stay there. A shirt-gripping waistband enables performance dress pants to keep your shirt in place no matter how you move.
Stretch. One of the things that define performance wear is the stretch. No, you don't want form-fitting pants, but you do want dress pants with a little bit of stretch that allows you to move more comfortably and makes sitting down for long periods much more pleasant.

Get Your Performance Shirt Today

What are performance shirts? Performance shirts are high-quality dress shirts that offer features that your grandparents couldn't have imagined in their dress shirts and make wearing a dress shirt much more pleasant. If you are sick of wrinkles, sweat stains, and dress shirts that are uncomfortable and unflattering, you will absolutely love performance shirts.

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